“Avoiding risk is not much of a goal...whether you crawl into a hole or walk a high wire, nobody gets out of here alive. We cannot grow without challenge.”

“Whether you like it or not, you are committed to the human endeavor. I cannot ally myself with such a purely negative goal as avoidance of suffering. Suffering is a chance you take by the fact of being alive.”

“...decide...whether or not the goal is worth the risks involved. If it is, stop worrying....”

“To try is to risk failure. But risk must be taken because the greatesthazard of life is to risk nothing. The person who risks nothing does nothing, has nothing, is nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn, feel, change, grow, live, and love.”

“But they can't know how the dark space inside me is growing. I lie to them. I can't get out of the dark hole. 'Peace is here' it whispers.”

“How presumptuous they had both been never to consider growing old as an achievement and a challenge. Aging was something they'd both wanted so much to avoid.”